Ms Holmes
by Delia Brethilwen
Summary: Seventeen years ago, Sherlock Holmes used to actually have feelings. Then, a girl turns up, and she's surprisingly like him. Will he learn to feel again? Or will the girl never know the man her mother fell in love with?


She took a deep breath and went up to the door of 221B Baker Street. She rang the bell, once, quickly, and waited for Mrs. Hudson to open the door. It only took a few minutes, but in that time, she noticed enough to know that she was in the right place. The first thing that told her that were the faces in the window above her, looking at her and observing her. She had made a mental check in those minutes that she had nothing on her that would give herself away before entering the front door and heading up the stairs to the apartment of Sherlock Holmes.

As she came in the open doorway to their sitting room, she took her bearings in this new place. There was a spray-painted yellow smiley face on the wall with bullet-holes marking the mouth and eyes; a skull sat on the mantelpiece beside a letter stuck in place with a jackknife; there were papers and books and other detritus on the floor and piled on the desks and chairs. Sherlock and his friend John Watson were waiting for her; rather, they were arguing about her. She caught Sherlock's whisper: "She has somehow managed to hide who she is from me. She's dangerous." She allowed herself a slight smile and then cleared her throat to get their attention, returning her expression to neutral.

"Ah, yes. Have a seat," Sherlock said, gesturing towards the cluttered chairs and couch. She arched an eyebrow and smiled a little. John rolled his eyes and moved to clear off a seat for her, but she said, "Don't bother, Dr. Watson; I prefer standing anyways." He shrugged and pulled a pad of paper from his pocket. "Alright, so you are a client?" he asked.

"No, I'm not a client. I'm here on a personal matter." She returned Sherlock's scrutinizing gaze. "My name is Shauna Holmes, and my business is with Mr. Holmes."

"What exactly is your business?" Sherlock asked. She could tell by the glint in his eyes that he was using her name to guess her business.

"I am here to tell you that I am your daughter, Sherlock." There was stunned silence in the flat as they processed that little piece of information.

"Impossible," blurted John. "Right, Sherlock?"

"Wrong, John," Sherlock replied quietly. "I can see the signs now."

"You can't read me," she said. "I purposely removed all items from my person that would give my real self away."

"I know that; but there are signs that would say you were my daughter. Your height alone suggests it. You cannot be much older than sixteen, yet you are already a good three centimeters taller than John."

"I am seventeen years and two months. And I am six centimeters taller than John."

John had been looking between the two of them, and then discreetly tried to check his height against Shauna's. He found that she was right; it was six centimeters. So he said, "But there are plenty of women who are tall, and just because she is tall doesn't mean that she is your daughter."

"No, but you can see that she also has my facial features: high cheekbones, a fine-boned nose, thin face, and the exact same eyes. Her hands resemble mine in their thinness and appearing frailty."

"But her skin is darker than yours, and her hair is not black."

"She has most likely spent more time in the sun than I did when I was young. And her mother's genes would contribute to the different hair colors: hers is a dark shade of red, indicating that maybe her mother was a red-head, and my genes caused Shauna's hair to darken from her mother's." Sherlock came to a sudden stop. "I have only ever known one ginger woman." He looked at Shauna.

She answered his unanswered question. "She died two months ago, the day before my seventeenth birthday. She left me a fortune, but that was not was important. She also gave the first clue to finding out who my father was."

"And you've spent the last two months following that first clue to find me."

"Yes." There was silence; Sherlock seemed to be reminiscing, Shauna as well, and John was just staring at them both.

"Ok, wait a moment. I'm lost. When did we become so sure that Shauna is your daughter, Sherlock."

"I became sure the moment I remembered that I've only ever known one ginger woman and that she was the only woman I've ever loved."

"Sherlock Holmes, _you_, felt an emotion?"

"Yes; that was long ago, when I was barely twenty. It was before I realized that emotions would get in the way of handling a case. You have no need to hear the whole story. All you need to know is that I loved her, but then she was almost killed while I was working on a case. I didn't want anything to happen to her, so I sent her away, but I also knew then that emotion was not useful in cases; it could warp facts based on how you felt about those facts and cause you to make mistakes. And so I removed emotion, and I never saw Keela again. I didn't once think of what happens when a man and a woman love each other, and so Shauna's appearance was really a surprise. But now I know better. Let me ask, did Keela teach you everything about my methods?"

"Of course. That was the only way I was able to find you. The clues were obscure enough to make me use the methods."

"Wait, Keela knew your methods?" Watson interrupted.

"Yes, yes," Sherlock said with a dismissing wave. "That's part of why I fell in love with her: she was the smartest woman I had ever met, as well as the most beautiful. I taught her all of my methods, everything I had learned and discovered then. And I daresay now that she kept up with me."

"She did. Your webpage was her home page; every time she opened the Internet browser, it loaded your webpage automatically. She was always telling me about your latest discoveries in chemistry and the science of dirts. And then she found John's blog; there was never a day that she didn't check it to see what new adventures you and John were up to. At the time, her obsession with you didn't click for me, but it does now. It was so obvious that she still loved you."

"And she taught you the methods so that one day, you would be able to find your absent father. Well, what do you think of him?"

Shauna smiled widely. "He is not what I thought he would be, but he is better than what I imagined."

Sherlock nodded, but John still looked unconvinced. "I still need more proof."

"What would satisfy you?" Sherlock roared. "A DNA test?"

"Yes, actually. But not one done by you; I want an actual DNA test done by one of the doctor's at Bart's."

"Alright, you can have your DNA test. Here, take this." Sherlock plucked a hair from his hand and sealed in a plastic bag; Shauna did the same. John took the bags from them and left. Shauna and Sherlock were left standing there, staring at one another. "I need to sit," he said, and cleared off the entire couch. He sat at one end, his legs pulled up to his chin and his arms around them. She sat at the other end, cross-legged. They continued to scrutinize each other.

"What are you going to do now?" he asked.

"Stay, if you'll let me," she replied. "I'll rent another bedroom from Mrs. Hudson. I can help you with your cases."

"I don't need help; I have John."

"John is good at questioning people and getting the answers you want, but he can't observe and deduct like you and I. I am a happy mix of your techniques and John's friendliness, and I could be useful. And I'm a woman, so I could go places that you could not."

"Those are good points. I suppose you can stay."

"Even if I were not helpful to you, would you let me stay simply because I'm your daughter?"

"Perhaps."

"So very nice of you."

Sherlock continued to stare at her. "Tell me about yourself, Shauna."

"Are you asking out of politeness, pure curiosity, or because I'm your daughter and you really want to know?"

A chuckle escaped his lips. "Is it all right for me to answer that all three are the reasons for my asking?"

"I suppose. I was born in 1996, on December 19th. I was a healthy baby, and Keela took me home, which was a small flat on the outskirts of Dublin. My childhood, although not as privileged as I've heard yours was, was still happy and content enough. I was not worried about who exactly my father was; all I knew was that we had to be away from him. This Keela told me, assuring me that he would have loved me if he knew of my existence. Later, when I was old enough to understand, she told me that he had a dangerous job and that was why we had to be separated.

"So I grew up, home-schooled by Keela, because it was obvious from my first year of public schools that I was far ahead of the other students. She told me I had inherited my father's intelligence and quick brain. She integrated your works into my curriculum, ensuring that I would become a master of deduction. I was never one for socializing, but I always like to keep up on the latest news.

"And then Keela died. I found the note about my father in her room, and I have taken leave from university to find him. And now I have."

Sherlock had been silent throughout her story, but now he launched into a barrage of questions. "Why don't you speak with your Irish accent? Why take a neutral one?"

"I didn't want you to even know that I was from Ireland. But it does tire me to keep up this fake accent, so I'll go back to my home accent now."

"Why do you call your mother by her first name?"

"I call her Keela because that's the only thing she ever told me. She never baby talked me, never said the typical 'Who's Mummy?' to me while I was growing up. She told me her name was Keela, and that's what I called her. There was never a problem with it, and it'll be the same for you, Sherlock."

"What were you going to university for?"

"I was going to get a double major in chemistry and pharmacology. I had originally planned to become a scientist and spend my life researching different substances and traveling the world to find new plants and animals with properties that could heal currently incurable diseases. But then I started noticing things about people, like how I knew that one girl at university was seeing a guy who was not her boyfriend, and that the boyfriend was completely oblivious to it, even though she never looked him in the eye again. And when Keela died and I found out who my father was, I was determined to join you as the world's second consulting detective."

"How did Keela die?"

"She was involved in the large twenty car crash that occurred at the beginning of December. She was rescued from the wreckage with eleven other survivors and taken to the hospital, where she was put on a machine that kept her alive even though she was in a coma. When I realized that she was not going to wake up from the coma, I had them take her off the machine." Shauna's voice broke, and there was emotion in it that had not been there earlier. Sherlock looked at her closer, searching for any kind of clue that would tell what was going on in her head. But Shauna quickly regained her composure and said, "Anything else you want to know?"

"Yes, one more thing. I know you've only just met me, but what do you think of me based on your search and your first meeting?"

"You seem genuinely emotionless, as many blogs by John and word of mouth from other sources say. I have no doubt of your abilities; those are always clear enough in the blogs. Your sitting room alone suggests that while seeming disorganized, you know where the important items are. I would say your bedroom would show this in still more evidence. John doesn't like the clutter because it makes him unable to bring girlfriends to his own flat, although that seems to be the main reason why you do not clean it up.

"The yellow smiley-face with the bullet-holes suggests, as I have read, that you are bored with the many mundane cases that come in, and sometimes no cases at all. You are in your dressing gown right now, which can only mean that you are between cases, because otherwise you would be wearing your traditional suit. I must agree with you that only the most extraordinary cases are the ones worth solving, although it is more of a challenge to do ordinary ones. I suggest the case concerning the missing jewels; the note from Lestrade is sitting on your desk beneath John's laptop.

"There is only one thing concerning your methods that I find a bit different to what I have found. You refer to your mind as an attic, and there is only a limited amount of space in which to put the things that are important. That's why you have focused on the things that you deem important to your occupation, such as chemistry and soil study. But my mind is more like a library with no boundaries, everything organized and placed in alphabetical order. I have read anything and everything that has crossed my path.

"Now, it make take me a certain amount of time to find what I look for, but it would certainly take less time for me to find what I need about the solar system in my mind than it would for you to look it up on your phone. Take for instance your game with Moriarty; the last puzzle was a fake painting. You had to prove it was a fake, and you almost lost that one because you did not know enough about astronomy to see the error. I looked at a picture of that painting in an online article about it, and it was obvious to me at first glance why it was a fake.

"I agree with John. If you had known a little more about our solar system, you would have been able to finish that puzzle sooner. So, to summarize what I've just said, you seem arrogant, self-centered, over confident, emotionless, and in need of a larger brain-attic."

"I see," was all Sherlock said. "Was the fact that I immediately removed the explosive from John not enough to show that I care for him?"

"Like one would care for a favored pet. Some even cry self-preservation."

"What about Keela? I loved her."

"That was seventeen years ago. You have changed. You said so yourself."

"I did." Sherlock had nothing else to say to defend himself. At that moment, John walked into the sitting room.

"Sherlock, she really is your daughter," he said as he sat down in an armchair, dumping the previous contents of the chair onto the floor. "The DNA test proved it." John waited for a response, but then he actually looked at the two and decided that maybe he didn't really want a response. "Well, now that that is cleared up, what are you going to do now, Shauna?"

"I thought I might rent another room from Mrs. Hudson and join you two in solving cases," she replied, turning away from Sherlock's gaze and repositioning herself so that she now faced John. "Sounds fun, doesn't it?"

"Of course. That would be really wonderful." John glanced at Sherlock, but Sherlock was still staring at Shauna. There was a strange expression on his face, and John was wary of it. "Just wonderful," he said under his breath.

"Well, then I'll go talk to Mrs. Hudson now." Shauna stood and left the room, going to Mrs. Hudson's office. After Shauna introduced herself and all the arrangements were made, Mrs. Hudson handed her a key for the front door and a key for her room and said, "Welcome to Baker Street, Ms. Holmes."


End file.
